I am sitting here right now thinking about how far I've come and how hard I've worked in such a contracted period of time. I had no deadline, no concrete goals to achieve or exceed, but it's a lot, and it's been fast. In under two years, I lost an entire adult's worth of weight, I got divorced, I crawled out of debt and into enough savings to last me months should I become unemployed. I was promoted twice, started living alone, bought a car, began and ended relationships that I thought were fine but weren't. I learned to set boundaries and declare their violations. I spat in the eye of decades of abuse, and told them they weren't allowed to control me anymore. Looking back at it all from this chair in front of this window, I don't know how I managed. It was all encompassing chaos, and I was in the middle of it without a way to sidestep.

I've done all these things, but I still have so far to go, and it's daunting. I should be celebrating my achievements, but I'm still beating myself up for the ones I haven't made yet. I have an impossible time asking for what I want. It's even harder to ask for what I need. I release the words with a cringe because I expect "no" to come in the form of a lengthy and painful argument when all I wanted to do was talk. I am acutely, paralytically afraid of losing people important to me by exposing that I can't always do everything myself, and that vulnerability gnaws in the middle of the night. I do not want to need or crave basic comfort, to admit I ache with it because I'm supposed to be able to do and handle anything. In so many ways, I'm still six years old figuring out that the world doesn't want me but still wanting it back.

I go through these exhaustive self examinations because I know I can be better. I refuse to accept that I am irreparably broken, but deeply know that I am. I may never trust anyone fully again. I might always look for the lies buried in a perceived half truth, sniffing out the rot in every omission. I will get searingly, shockingly angry at my insecurities and cry myself to sleep because you made me feel them. By my own measure, I simply can't compete, and I can't settle for good as I am. I can never be proud of myself or accept an earnest compliment. My imperfections hurt as they echo in my chest.

So much is easy for me. I need only be shown a task before I can master it. But getting out of bed, planting my feet on the floor, those are hard every single day because I know I need to keep looking inside and trying to fix me.